Studying Law : How Hard could It be?

This question is the first impression we learn about studying. Reflecting back to our childhood, many of us used to enter school with a mind setup of ‘difficulty’ in us. Math used to be our most feared foe, and eventually in bachelors the books without even a single picture bothers us a lot. More or less, all of us have that friend who never gets terrified with the calculations, reports, assignments, exams; can read books more than prescribed in the syllabus; and obviously becomes topper in the exams too.

It seems the question has always remained unsolved, studying: how hard could it be? Usually it becomes too late when we finally realize that studying was never difficult like we used to assume. We now realize it was just a fear that have grown within us from an unsuitable learning process as well as class environment, and that studying could have been the most luxurious thing to do. Let me tell you how hard it could be. Studying is indeed one of the most luxurious jobs to do on earth.

For a student, at the apex of all inspirations – waking up in early morning is always terrifying. Perhaps we are inspired at night but the morning alarm is always a tussle. We have difficulty to wake up ourselves for our own purposes, unless the purpose is a trip out. Waking up is not difficult. Rather waking up and standing in ten seconds in a boxing ring is difficult. We get beaten badly and we fall in ground. Just another one second, and the game is over. So, this is what deserves to be called ‘difficult’ than that waking up safe and sound in bed.

An army training is difficult to accomplish. The military job later is more difficult. Soldiers have to live dirty, sleep barely, eat once in few days, and even can get killed with one small piece of metal shot from miles away. Their enemy knows the hideouts better and all they know is where to rendezvous. It is not easy; they have to get the job done and must not get killed by the enemies! My point here is: this job is absolutely ‘not comfortable’. There exists difficulty too just the way it should be.

In the other world, the hardest thing we would do is to sit and keep looking in the laptop or take a book and turn pages looking for something relevant or for preparing class assignments. In my view, it is practically more comfortable to read and understand what is already written by someone else, than to be in the aforementioned ring or a soldier’s place. We cannot expect any more luxury than this. In the aftermath of studying, it is no less luxurious to work. The term ‘luxurious’ describes the best opportunities one gets merely by completing certain levels of study in any institution.

Modern people have cultured the use of excuses. Just after the ‘difficulty syndrome’ is to be solved, we make ‘intelligence’ as the next excuse. Human beings are designed to be intelligent unless he is a mentally unusual person who is sadly impaired of intelligence. We, the normal human beings, just get de-motivated. We are more obsessed with laziness and unwillingness. Nonetheless, intelligence is not acquired effortlessly. Just like gym-workout improves muscles, brain requires continuous practice too, and its improvement depends on how enough we have been practicing. We have no reason to be obtuse because intelligence is a fundamental feature of human brain. It is our duty to be intelligent. There are people who expect us to be intelligent, and that is why we are bound to be intelligent, tomorrow more than today and so on. There is no way out than to be intelligent. Everything today is difficult, and the era of ease is long ago gone.

It is really simple how people get to be called intelligent. The fantasy of the legend who can calculate every math ever invented, studied a thousand books, stayed awake like an owl, worked with a happy mind and faced exams in a jolly mood. All these only require a playful and tolerant mind. What we usually cannot do is to have figured out about how to set up a playful mind for study. This is because most of the times we really have no idea about why we are studying the things that we have to study or whether the class lectures are ever going to connect the dots that we don’t understand how to connect. On the other hand, we also realize that we take more interest in things that we know where to be used after studying like the science projects in school. Today, for instance, it makes us feel sleepy if we have to read a case file or a statute just to see how they are written and it gets tedious when we are under that circumscribed obligation to study them. It does feel like a blight of being a law student. We barely remember them another minute further. But when it is needed to be studied for using in a real case or a project, then it will not remain a bothering task anymore. It will become a game to hunt down the goblin out of it. There also comes a glee of accomplishment which will keep us tempting to try something tougher next time. We all get nervous in a presentation and it increases as the mass gets bigger. This is only because we are lured to be petrified to speak in public since our childhood. Children should be taught to speak elegantly than to convince to speak without being ‘nervous’. A mind that has no knowledge of anxiety will never fear and will at least learn than prosaic.

Making a game out of things we study and work on eventually gives us mettle and makes us experienced. This becomes a factor for knowledge and the intelligence we stumble for. We have to take it as simple as brushing the shoes to shine. Everyone has got that leather shoes; we just need to polish it regularly. It may not shine very well at first but very soon we learn to polish so good that we can see our faces in it. If we polish, it will shine and if we don’t, it won’t!

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[1]Kunjan Shah is a mooter and researcher. Besides pursuing LLB from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, he has been working as a Trainee Associate in Abhinawa Law Chambers, a leading law firm in Nepal. He is currently working as a researcher for a book soon to be published on Air Carriers Liability in Nepal. He can be reached at: kkunjanshah007@gmail.com.